If When
by WitheredCarnation
Summary: During his travels, Kain encounters a Sarafan battling for his life... and is shocked to find himself fighting at the man's side. Rated for violence.


If When

Withered Carnation

I didn't think of what I did as aid. Certainly not rescue. The Sarafan knight would have rejected either from the likes of me, were I inclined to offer them (and I assure you, I was not). I must wonder what he thought of it, however. When I found him, he was wounded. Some might have said that made him better off than his companions, whose blood painted the cold basalt beneath him. I would not have. Their suffering was over. His had just begun.

The chill of the night air pierced even me. It would be worse if the clouds blocking the starlight meant snow. I perched above, at the mouth of a mountain spring, careful to keep to the scraggy brown grass and trees that struggled to live at the edge of the water while avoiding the water itself. The knight stood against the stone wall beneath but directly opposite my position, knee high in his own dead. In the light of his campfire, I could see what had slain the others, even if I could not identify them. Once, these mountains had bordered the wasteland known as Dark Eden. The enemies below were remnants of its twisted denizens. Bloated, bladed arms like those of a praying mantis lashed at the knight, drawing blood where they struck. Their faces, gnarled, shining like bone with eldritch light. They writhed like slugs with each motion. Four, that I counted, and they were massive. They thronged his narrow circle of light. He fought them all.

I had to travel that road below me. These wretches would give me the same welcome. Still, I could have waited until the Sarafan fell. Patience has never been among my virtues, but outnumbered as he was, I wouldn't have needed much. Neither did I seek to ease my burden by recruiting him as a temporary ally. Frankly, I'd rather die in the gutter than owe my life to a Sarafan. I admit, the battle itself called me. The sight of the Serioli iron red with fire and viscera, the sound of metal clashing with bone; there are few sirens whose song I find so enticing. Buried in the back of my mind, though, was something else; another man, wearing the expression now on the Sarafan's face; an expression that rejected the death first offered, then thrust upon him, by a multitude. Fleeing from one door to the next, finding nothing but fresh assault no matter where he turned...

Perhaps I merely wanted the knight to suffer longer.

I dropped silently to the ground. The beasts were gathered so tightly in the valley I could feel the unnatural heat of their flesh as soon as my feet touched the path. I could trace their outlines from so close; I could mark the pulsing, unprotected back of the closest attacker. I drew my own sword and plunged it between the thing's twisted shoulders. It wasn't enough to fell the creature- if that were all it took, so many would not be dead- but it was enough to draw its attention to me and confuse the frenzy of its pack.

That was not all I had for it. When it turned to me with its blades and teeth, I brought the hilt of the sword crashing between its eyes. I caught its claw, then its lunge, and I thrust low so not to expose myself to a fatal counterattack. While this creature distracted me, another circled behind me. I leapt from between them, landing on the first's wounded back. Here, out of reach, I raised my sword for all the leverage I could muster and slammed it through the fiend's skull. I closed my eyes and mouth to the gore spraying in my face. The blood of Dark Eden's children is poison to vampires. I kicked it into the second creature. While it was stunned, I sliced cleanly through its gelatinous middle, sundering it in twain.

But what of the Sarafan? I must confess, he disappointed me. He hadn't wrought the destruction I had. I was tempted to call to him, ask him to pretend his enemies were vampires and see if that stirred his fury. Still, he had at least finally fought his way out of his corner and found the room to swing his double-bladed long sword. I felt the sting of jealousy. I'd owned a sword much like it, forged by the renowned Serioli, long ago; the one I wielded now, I'd appropriated from a robber who'd harassed me on the drawbridge. It was a far inferior weapon. I stepped over the dead creature, and as I did, the Sarafan finally charged. His attack was desperate and its result pure luck. The mutant's stomach split, and out spilled its innards. Bravo, or about damned time, whichever comes first.

That left us only one more to deal with. That I could see, at least. I was sure more lay in ambush, and reminded myself to be on guard when I was on my way again. That, finally, looked to happen soon. The Sarafan and I circled our final assailant, now itself outnumbered.

This did not mean it was beaten, not anymore than the Sarafan had been, or that I had been, when it had been me. We attacked, the Sarafan with his slow but heavy, sweeping blows, myself with the quick, lethal bite of a serpent. The creature fell between us in a sprawling heap.

When we shifted our gazes from the twitching corpse, we saw and knew one another. I could see his breath in the freezing air, the sweat on his brow, the pain of his wounds written on his face. That was not all I saw. I saw fields of stakes at the gates of townships, along bridges, my slowly dying brothers struggling weakly to dislodge themselves as passers by sneered or outright laughed. I saw the noble Vorador thrust to his knees beneath the blade of a guillotine. For my part, I could not tell the Sarafan's thoughts, but I am sure I must have been his nightmare vampire, manifested straight from one of his ridiculous, propagandic murals, face smeared with blood, emerging from the shadows to stab my enemies in the back. He didn't look like he was thinking of offering gratitude.

But his weapon remained at his side, and so did mine. We were locked, we two, in this moment that was not supposed to happen. How could we know what to do?

It was he who drew first. I do not fault him. My fingers had been twitching, as well.

Having seen each other in battle, each of us knew what the other was capable of. It might have been interesting, had he not already been so badly injured when I'd arrived. I probably could have climbed back up to my perch and waited for him to expire. That seemed, somehow, the wrong thing to do, so I fought him. I did not insult him by holding back.

It was a very short fight.

He collapsed against the boulders, laying as if reclining or broken. I knelt beside him. That sword was worth more than some men's homes; if anyone encountered him, it would certainly be stolen. I lay my hand on its hilt, intending to be the one to steal it... but I released it almost immediately, as if burned. No. He could take this to his grave. I would help him. I was hungry, but I stayed my hand here, as well. There would be other meals, even in a place like this. I could wait.

Gingerly, I drew a card relic- the Font of Putresce- and I emptied it along the ground around him. The slightest contact with this poison trap would dissolve any who fell into it, leaving nothing but a foul puddle on the ground. His compatriots would know the way around it when they found him (and if a few were caught in it first, so much the better). That done, I was finished with this place. I briefly wondered, as I walked away, whether he would have shown me the same courtesy.

I briefly wondered what the man's name had been.


End file.
